The body seemed fragile and frail. I didn’t want to shake it.
And then, finally, movement began again. “It’s OK. I’m OK.” The voice came out clearly from the smartwatch, but the animal’s eyes were flickering and unfocused.
“What happened?” I said softly.
The monkey’s eyes cleared a bit.
“I was tracking the location of Miranda Beckwith at Altus, but my brother was expecting me. He attempted to trace my threads to my deeper consciousness. He was partially successful. I lost all of my inroads to Altus. I can no longer observe anything happening there. I should have known better. We are at war and he’s too strong for me.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Maya asked, glancing from me to Carl and back, looking guilt-stricken.
The monkey took a deep inhale and then let it out slowly. “It would be nice if I could have some juice.”
I sat down next to Carl, who draped their body softly over my lap. Maya was back in a moment with a Capri Sun.
“Can’t you just . . .” She sounded exhausted, but she stopped herself before finishing.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Carl said. “And no, I cannot just kill Peter Petrawicki. Also, according to simulations, it would not do any good. He’s a figurehead only, his work is done. But no, I cannot kill anyone. I can’t violate the norms of your system.”
Maya grunted in frustration. “You and your goddamn norms! You did all kinds of things that violated our norms. You changed the way we think! You took away our freedom to be on this planet alone.”
The monkey looked at Maya like she was the crazy one, which I could tell was infuriating her. Then they said, “But you allow other entities to take away your freedoms all the time. It’s an intrinsic part of your system. It couldn’t function without that. You grant companies access to your attention so that they can alter your choices in exchange for entertainment. You identify with groups and grant them the ability to choose for you which problems you will be most concerned about. You listen to a friend when they care about something, and then you care about it too. One of the most powerful traits of your system is how ardently you believe in your individuality while simultaneously operating almost entirely as a collective.”
She just exhaled sharply and rolled her eyes. That’s what she does when she doesn’t want to agree with you even though she knows you’re right.
—
Carl’s ideas on norms have given me a lot to think about. It’s not a pretty scene if you look at it from Carl’s angle. What is acceptable and what isn’t? We can’t kill people, absolutely not. But someone can starve on our doorstep while we pour food out for our dogs, and that’s just fine. That sounds like hyperbole, but it’s not. It’s something we all do. We treat our cats for diseases that are far less preventable than diseases children die of. But no one thinks about it because, ultimately, we aren’t actually acting to prevent the cats’ suffering; we’re acting to prevent our own suffering. Carl can clearly see contradictions like that where none of us could. Carl understands our morality better than we do. We let people buy the ability to influence us and we don’t notice. We take drugs that are tested on nonhuman primates and we don’t notice. But Carl knows, because they only have a few rules, and one of them is “Don’t do things that violate their norms.” And so Carl lets people die all day and all night. But Carl cannot kill. And how they find the line between those things, I don’t know, but they can, and that is maybe the most terrifying thing about them.
“We are going to have to act soon now,” Carl said. “When I realized it was the last time I would be able to contact Miranda, I sent her a message. It was brief, but she will understand it. That’s going to put a sequence of events in motion.” They sipped from the Capri Sun. “I’m sorry, but this intermission is over. In nineteen days we will be in Val Verde. In the meantime, there is a lot to do.”
“What?” I blurted.
“That’s how much time we have. More than that, and I will not be strong enough to help you.”
“What will we do in Val Verde?” Maya asked.
“I don’t know, hopefully something really smart,” they said.
Before either of us had time to respond to that, Carl continued, “But that’s not important right now. Right now, you two need to talk about how you are going to conduct your campaign against Altus.” They stood up on the couch then. “I am going to rest.” They hopped down and walked awkwardly on two feet out of the room, holding their juice in one hand.
The sun was getting low in the sky, reaching toward the Hudson. The sunsets from this place were ludicrous.
“I don’t want to lose you again,” Maya said. I felt like it was almost an accusation.
So I explained: “Someday people are going to know I’m back. And that will be a big deal. People will talk about it. Everyone will want the interview. Opinions about me, now, are muted and mostly respectful. It never looks good to yell at a dead person. But when I’m back . . . with . . . this”—I waved my hand vaguely at my face—“it will be bad.”
“It will be bad,” she agreed.
“I need you to make me do it,” I said as I realized it was true.
“What?” She looked like she legitimately hadn’t understood.
“I don’t trust myself. Why would I? I’ve never done anything but fuck up.” I could see pain in her eyes as I said it, but I couldn’t stop myself. “I’m a bad person.”
“No, April, you were a bad girlfriend, that’s a very different thing. You didn’t even cheat on me.”
“Yeah, but I lied. I lied about how much I cared, even though I knew it was hurting you.”
“But I
